Meat encasing machines for manufacturing sausages, wieners and the like have long existed in the prior art. Such a machine is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,115,688. These machines typically have an elongated stuffing horn upon which is mounted a shirred flexible casing. A hollow cylindrical chuck is mounted on the machine and receives the discharge end of the stuffing horn through which meat emulsion is extruded. The end of the stuffing horn and the shirred casing thereon are inserted into the casing which is rotated by a suitable drive mechanism. A chuck twists the casing as meat emulsion is extruded therein. A linking mechanism downstream from the discharge end of the stuffing horn serves to grasp the filled casing to hold it against rotation. Thus, the opposing forces exerted on the casing by the chuck and the linking mechanism cause the casing to twist at longitudinal increments defined by the distance between the discharge end of the chuck and the point where the filled casing is grasped by the linking mechanism.
Machines of this type commonly encase up to 5,000 pounds of meat emulsion per hour into approximately 30,000 wieners or sausages. The chucks used in the prior art are made of plastic and have flutes therein which enable them to grasp the casing as it is being filled so that the casing can be rotated. These flutes are disposable and may have a useful life of only six to eight hours if the machine is being continuously operated.
The conventional chucks fit into a sleeve within the housing that imparts rotational motion to the chuck. The sleeve is normally of a compatible diameter to snugly receive the outer circumference of the chuck. However, sometimes the tolerances of these two components are such that the chuck is not firmly grasped by the sleeve and some oscillating movement of the chuck results as it is being rapidly rotated by the sleeve. This oscillation results in the casing rupturing as the meat emulsion is being extruded therein.
It is therefore a principal object of this invention to provide a chuck for meat encasing machines which will not experience any oscillation as it is imparting rotational motion to a casing being filled by the machine.
A further object of this invention is to provide a chuck for a meat encasing machine which can be quickly and easily inserted into and removed from the drive sleeve of a meat encasing machine.
A still further object of this invention is to provide a chuck for a meat encasing machine which can be economically manufactured.
These and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art.